What we want to know is if there has been any changes in the fly fishing at Towanda Creek downstream of the Atgas 2H well mentioned in the articles? Has the macro invertebrates (hatches) decreased, stayed the same? Or, is anything unusual happening on the stream? This might not be the case, and if you have experience fishing the creek, please respond even if nothing has changed... Your input will help a great deal in finding out how the area may or may not have been impacted from the blowout/spill.

Also, if you can pass this forum on to others who may know more please do so.

Personally, I don't know if this is a good place to get information like that. Perhaps a biological assessment should/was completed by an agency that know what they're doing that will shine light onto the matter.

Yeah you guys got some real nerve asking people who utiize towanda creek if they have noticed any change in the creek since the spill. I mean geez what are you trying to do here?? Shed some light on a natural disaster that could impact what we love to do!

jeff wrote:Yeah you guys got some real nerve asking people who utiize towanda creek if they have noticed any change in the creek since the spill. I mean geez what are you trying to do here?? Shed some light on a natural disaster that could impact what we love to do!

I mean really Sender??? WTF

If I had any info I would post.... Just sayin.

Crowd sourcing information like this for a newspaper isn't really reliable in my opinion. Take this for example...

"I went to the Upper Delaware for the Jam this year and the fishing was slow, I saw what I would consider to be substandard hatches. Vegetation in the river was suspiciously high. I bet someone was dumping pollutants in the water and that's why things were off."

See, not very reliable. Other people who were with me that weekend did fine, and know the river is fine. The only pollutants that were released that weekend were farts from waders.

The OP asked a VERY specific question about macro-invertebrate life that can't reliably be answered by a casual observer. ETP and pH testing would give reliable results. The best way to do this would be with a kick test that either the DCNR, DEC, FBC, or a local TU chapter might be able to do (or has already done).

Ya Jeff, I think you may have interpreted Senders message a little off. I agree that if there is a major spill in that area, the DEP, DCNR, PAFBC, etc or a private firm hired by the state should do a solid macro study. This should be funded by the offending party.

Having read the story, there is no way that SAIC should have been used for testing. Seriously? Chesapeake and SAIC share board members! What a conflict of interest.

The article itself is so skewed that it should be labeled as an editorial. Quite the liberal use of quotation marks in a very condescending way.

There should be fines imposed for the event. Costs of neutral studies should be paid for by Chesapeake. Having said that, I really doubt they are going to find anything given the intense and heavy rains which basically diluted everything.

Nothing wrong with putting a feeler out, atleast in this particular case in this particular board. IMOI'm sure many articles and cases have been obtained/started by reporters asking everyone they can, not just who they should.Personally, never fished it.

the OP was probably just hoping someone here might know something or at least lead them in the right direction. nothing wrong with that. maybe they were hoping someone here was a fishery biologist type or something along those lines who may have info on that creek.

Thanks for reading the investigation. Any quotation marks "" in the article are directly referring to the language found in DEP, SAIC, and Chesapeake records. Our use is only to familiarize the reader with that language since it often changes terms, and can become confusing. I understand your frautration with the editing since this is not being published as a piece in response to a press release, which is a more common way of reading these types of reports, but is being published as an investigation which requires our organization to be more conclusive, and therefore question moral truths that we think might of been broken during the environmental assesment or by the DEP when recovering the documents.

We appreciate anyone's participation in helping us find out more about this, since there is no plan to perform any further studies. And we have not been aware of studies on Towanda Creek. Also, one person pointed out that it was washed away because of heavy rains, which is also our assumption and we wanted be sure that's the case and ask around before we go on with this investigation.

Sorry for the typos, but this message is from an iPhone. Thanks again for the input.

At the time the blow out occurred in Leroy, Towanda Creek was experiencing heavy flooding. The creek down by Cons rd. which is East and down stream of the blow out, fished well for stocked browns and rainbows. Also, I caught numerous smallmouth bass in the 10 inch to 18 inch range throughout the summer. As in terms of discovering a major contamination issue; you're wasting your time. Towanda creek was literally a 100 yards wide during the blowout....thank god! Some say the Chesapeake Bay was harmfully damaged by this blow out. However, I'd say human feces and agricultural runoff, grouped with urban sprawl contamination, accounts for more serious awareness than Chesapeake Energy's blow out. Perhaps a more interesting story would be the Asexual organ development that is occurring in smallmouth bass in the Shenandoah, Potomac, and Susquehanna rivers.

The real problem for anything environment is human related in most cases. Not until mother earth creates a virus that humans can't fight is when the earth will see positive changes.

I would lay down all my money down that Towanda Creek is having more damage now by earth moving equipment upstream of Monroeton 5 miles than the blow out possibly damaging microinvertibrates. The creek is currently being rechannelised along with Schradder Creek.

Posted on: 2011/12/1 20:10

_________________
When I grow up I want to be, one of the harvesters of the sea. I think before my days are done, I want to be a fisherman."I'll live and die a fisherman."

Thanks for reading the investigation. Any quotation marks "" in the article are directly referring to the language found in DEP, SAIC, and Chesapeake records. Our use is only to familiarize the reader with that language since it often changes terms, and can become confusing. I understand your frautration with the editing since this is not being published as a piece in response to a press release, which is a more common way of reading these types of reports, but is being published as an investigation which requires our organization to be more conclusive, and therefore question moral truths that we think might of been broken during the environmental assesment or by the DEP when recovering the documents.

We appreciate anyone's participation in helping us find out more about this, since there is no plan to perform any further studies. And we have not been aware of studies on Towanda Creek. Also, one person pointed out that it was washed away because of heavy rains, which is also our assumption and we wanted be sure that's the case and ask around before we go on with this investigation.

Sorry for the typos, but this message is from an iPhone. Thanks again for the input.

I would think the PFBC biologist responsible for that area would have an opinion on any impacts. While DEP is not doing any followups the biologist would have ongoing knowledge of the stream's health.

Let me put it to you this way... The Towanda Creek is put and take. Period. It's not a destination fishery nor does it have a natural reproduction (except, way... way... way up in the headwaters where only the hermits live). No one drives 3 hours out of the way to fish it... You have heard of anglers driving a shit ton of miles to Spring, Penns, LeTort, Salmon River, Elk & Walnut. It's good fishing. The Towanda? It's only good for the stringer crowd in the spring. That takes away from the rednecks keeping the 6" natives in the feeder creeks.

Gas blowouts in our county have happened. Will happen again. That's the price we pay for allowing these rednecks to come up from below the Mason-Dixon line and drill.

I caught many a big wild browns downstream of Kelly's Creekside. Good restoration upstream accounted for a whopper....parden, hopper day! Maybe jigs and I should fish together in the south one day. There's a section of a steam completely private and I'd like to fish it. However, it's a different crick...

Posted on: 2011/12/6 22:54

_________________
When I grow up I want to be, one of the harvesters of the sea. I think before my days are done, I want to be a fisherman."I'll live and die a fisherman."